A Cat Looks at Inspiration

“It you hear a voice within you say you cannot paint, then by all means paint and that voice will be silenced.” – Vincent Van Gogh

Have you ever felt like a cat who looks like she’s sleeping on the sunny windowsill, but she’s really listening to every sound, every movement? Well, that’s been me for the past six weeks. I feel a need to hang out a bit, store up energy, sleep, and maybe hibernate a little. Some days I can’t get enough of it, sleep that is. Seeing the sun first thing in the morning—who needs it, except to curl up in?  And some nights I am ready to go to bed at 9:00, but push myself to stay awake until 10:00. Maybe these urges are less about hibernation and more about self-preservation. The state of somnolence can teach us a lot: we learn from our dreams, especially the recurring ones. I’m paying close attention to what my dreams are telling me—because I need some inspiration.

Hibernating has meant pulling back from some established routines—I’m not chasing that ball anymore—and yes, listening. Listening with an intense kind of concentration, not forcing it, but rather opening, softening. The distinction for me is small, but important because on many days that spark of creativity just doesn’t come easily. Some days I feel as if I have a giant hairball stuck in my throat, and I can’t create anything. When this happens, certain forces arise in me and a quiet panic emerges. I glance at the time on the clock, hear the man in the house talking on the phone, and take a mental accounting of things which include, but are not limited to:  worries, floating ideas that pop in and out of my chattering mind, more worries, noticing small but incessant annoyances with my body. (Am I hungry again?) Then, instead of letting the grand and perfect divinity of my creative spirit open, my own small motives and petty circumstances engulf me. And suddenly, I feel my claws come out.

If this defensive action is supposed to get my attention, it does. I am past sixty, an old cat, and who knows when I will be ‘called’ to that great sunny windowsill in the sky, or maybe, return as an iguana. Or said another way, what will it take for me to learn to shed some of this extra fur of mine and make art a centerpiece in my life?  I just have nanoseconds when the ideas are flowing and time passes unnoticed.  I’m in my Groove, my Flow, the Zone, and nothing matters except to have something form in front of me. Then, POOF, or in some cases, POOF, POOF, the moments of inspiration are gone like a cruel sleight of hand trick. And the ever-widening space that once was so pleasurable and life-giving has evaporated and is now gone. I fall back to earth to settle with the dust motes. I’m lucky though; I get a lot of chances. I have nine lives.

Today as I write this reflection, I know to be the best we can be as writers and artists we must do our work. When we tap into our creativity, we enter into places of lightness and darkness seeking the inspiration we are all after. Great imaginations ask a lot of us. We must listen, open, look, find beauty, speak the truth, love, be joyful, feel pain, trust, show courage, be seekers, dream, imagine, have faith and lastly, we must tell our stories, work our art. And when we do, we rock the room with our PURRING. – Becky Breed

Exercise for Living Creatively:

• Is your paintbrush is still in its holder, or you can’t get a photo you like of the pine tree on the bluff? Does it seem like your creativity seems to have taken leave?
• If this is happening, you might experience some urges—but not the kind that gets you creating again. What to do? Sometimes pretending you’re something else gets you back in the Groove again.
• How about imagining you’re an animal? Is there any animal in particular you are feeling like today?
• Do you want to snarl, fetch, stretch, build a dam, hibernate, grow new feathers?
• Do you want to curl up, hide, build your nest, soar the sky, stand in a lake, catch that mouse?
• Now shed whatever is holding you back. You’ve got a lot of life left in you. Do YOUR art and start purring again.